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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27651296">Inherit the Earth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCeDreams/pseuds/iCeDreams'>iCeDreams</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Winchester Gospels [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angel Mythology, Dystopia, Heaven, M/M, Reincarnation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:35:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27651296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCeDreams/pseuds/iCeDreams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Righteous Man chooses reincarnation over an eternity in Heaven, Castiel is lost. He begins searching for the soul he knew in an Earth that has been vastly changed by the times.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel (Supernatural)/Original Male Character(s), Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Winchester Gospels [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1027634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello everybody, Happy Supernatural Series Finale! </p><p>This has been sitting in my hard drive for six years, and because of Supernatural ending, it was just too good to pass up for me to post and begin again. (I mean I love me a good Heaven mythology come on. Besides, it's a happy coincidence realizing the things that I got right when envisioning Heaven) Therefore, this diverges from Season 9-10, because when I started writing it, the other seasons have not existed yet.</p><p>I'd like to think you don't need to read the first two fics, but actually, you need to read at least the first one for this to make sense. The second one is a ficlet that melds into the world seamlessly and you do not need to read it.</p><p>If you don't want to read that, the summary is: Castiel became the Keeper of the Throne while God is away. Chuck is not God. Crowley and Abaddon are still locked trying to fight over Heaven and Hell. Heaven is my playground and has several spheres. </p><p>Thank you to my wonderful betas: Vaesse, Theo Rose, and Helianthus.</p><p>The beginning in the notes is the Prologue guys XD It's very difficult to write a prologue in the AO3 system.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>When the Gates of Heaven were locked, and the angels all thrown out of Heaven, it took the Righteous Man and the Keeper of the Throne to open the Gates once again. It heralded a time of peace for all the angels, a time for reflection, a time to restructure the spheres, and what they understood of their home.
</p><p> It was also a time to heal. All four archangels, although <em>alive,</em> were separated, and God was largely absent. In the entire time that the angels licked their wounds, Earth turned and civilizations came and went. Abaddon and Crowley, left alone by the angels to their machinations, still fought with each other in a bloody stalemate over the remnants of Hell, for the title of King.
</p><p> The humans, suddenly made aware of the supernatural, scampered to build protections around themselves. Because demons were kept out by iron, salt, holy water, and devil’s traps, they flocked to cities and built towers imbued in their foundations with iron and salt, their outer walls blessed with holy water and their structure done in an elaborate devil’s trap to keep out the newly discovered demons.
</p><p> Humans learned to build <em>up</em> rather than across the plains, because the plains were where they were vulnerable, protection symbols or not. If a demon found you, if they cannot inhabit you, they could always kill you.
</p><p> Ghosts still existed inside the towers because despite the salt circles, ghosts are attached to places where they died or organic material that family members have kept. These are difficult to contain even with the knowledge of the supernatural, and people have died inside the towers, making it easy for ghosts to inhabit.
</p><p> As for shifters and vampires… They hid in the tower’s multiple levels having infiltrated some of the humans, adapting and hiding in the shadows. But overall, the towers were safer. So humans left the plains to the demons and surprisingly, to the devout.
</p><p> Hunters thrived and died in the plains, where they could scrounge up land and artifacts, and shuttle important people across to other settlements as well as guard produce, resources, and materials that could not be obtained through airplanes.
</p><p> A new religion was born in the ashes of this strange new world, a religion based off of the Winchester Gospels, a new testament appended the Old… and the Older testaments. It was a religion that preached of protection and it appealed to hunters and Men of Letters whose bunker was still intact and its smaller capitula revived and made active.
</p><p> So life was changed, but still the same for angels who watched and did not interfere.
</p><p> Life was the same until the Righteous Man decided to get reincarnated… and that was when shit hit the fan.
</p>
<hr/></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <h2>
    <strong><a id="Chapter%201" name="Chapter%201"></a>Chapter One</strong>
  </h2>
</div><p> Angels were beings of function rather than emotion. It was the reason why in their infinite millennia of being alive, they could remember all that they were and all that they could be without going mad. There were some exceptional angels for whom this was not true, and thus the reason for Naomi’s office was born. It was true for Castiel, who had fallen, had occupied a single vessel longer than most angels (barring Gabriel who has not changed his since the Vikings walked), and had been seraph, then human, then god, then malakh.
</p><p> So to cope without being broken, to remember without remembering the loss, Castiel had fractured some of his grace and planted it around some of his father’s creation. One shard of it had been buried beneath the very bench where he’d confessed his worst sins, where he had told the Righteous Man that he was not a hammer. And though he broke his grace, he visited to remember.
</p><p> Castiel touched down in one of his favorite places, always hoping that this place, though it had been long since forgotten, would be where he would find the Righteous Man against all odds.
</p><p> But it was still empty, his favorite bench surrounded by tall grass. What had once been a park was now filled with rusted metal. The humans have moved on from the suburbs and had long since built their cities inside large towers in the effort to expand, learn and find a place to keep their exponentially growing numbers. This bench was long forgotten and remained only alive in the pockets of time for the immortals, the ancients and the undying to keep.
</p><p> Unfortunately, one such immortal waited for him in this place. The drawback of having a favorite place was its predictability, but he could not change his routine and stop coming to this place. One of his sisters, her wings tucked away while inside a vessel manifest on the mortal plane, was standing patiently while he regarded her. It must be urgent, as since the Gates of Heaven had accepted Heaven’s children back into its folds, angels have been reluctant to leave their respective circles.
</p><p> "Castiel," she said in the severe tones that marked her as one of Raphael's garrison before the Second Fall, "you are being summoned."
</p><p> Since he’d been the Caretaker, he hadn’t been summoned anywhere. As long as he attended the Throne, made sure that it was bright, shining and perpetually <em>waiting</em> for its owner, his brothers and sisters left him to his own devices. Being the Caretaker was vastly boring work because his Father had not deemed it worth his time to hold court in the Throne of Glory for eons. It <em>was</em> useful for the rare locked-out-of-Heaven scenario that Metatron had foisted on them and stitching together some of the mortal’s heavens if they requested it, but largely the Caretaker of the Throne was an empty title if there was no one to sit on said Throne. Not even the archangels.
</p><p> Gabriel was managing his circle, and after a few centuries, Raphael who had grown back from the Void of being smote, had also resumed his post. Gabriel, it seemed, was the right sort of contrast to Raphael’s seriousness. Castiel had forgotten what it was like for the archangels to work in pairs, as Lucifer and Michael had been a matched set before the First Fall. Gabriel did encourage Castiel to govern the Aravoth, the Seventh Heaven, and Castiel found himself in the midst of cherubim, seraphim and the ophanim who had absolutely nothing to do with a throne without someone to <em>sit on it</em>.
</p><p> Castiel unfurled his wings and flew, touching down on the Throne Room and genuflecting in front of the empty Throne. He turned towards his captain, Selaphiel, his summoner, the angel who was given dominion over Thursdays, for though he was Caretaker and that was his role, he was still part of a garrison that had its hierarchies separate from the duties of the Throne Room itself. Castiel waited for his orders.
</p><p>  "You have been without a charge for more than a thousand years."
</p><p> Souls were given to Guides. He has not been a Guide since he lost the Righteous Man. Not since he was brought into the garrison under Anna (whose angelic name has been stripped off the records after she ripped her Grace and was Born).
</p><p> "I haven't been entrusted with those duties since my First Death."
</p><p> There was a beat of silence Selaphiel regarding him carefully. "We are entrusting this to you now."
</p><p> It is against an angel's nature to protest, to disobey, to challenge, and yet he took that small step forward. The very protest was beginning on his lips.
</p><p> "It is time for you to start living again, Castiel."
</p><p> "I am not worthy of this trust," Castiel protested. He still had work to do. He still hadn’t found Dean.
</p><p> "You are worth second chances, Angel of Thursday," His captain intoned, with steel in his voice that showed both conviction and his right. “But that isn’t why you’re disobeying is it?”
</p><p> Castiel took a deep breath; he hadn't known that others noticed where he had been spending his time. He was looking, it seemed he was forever doomed to <em>look</em> for the impossible things, wasn't he?
</p><p> "His soul hasn’t been seen for decades. Is it not time to set your sights elsewhere?” Selaphiel asked.
</p><p> “The Righteous Man has been my responsibility since I raised him from perdition. I have cared for Dean Winchester since I rebuilt him from bone and sinew.” Castiel shook his head. “I cannot just leave him.”
</p><p> “You will be on Earth, Castiel. Is that not what you want? To be on Earth so you can look?”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>oOo</p>
</div><p> Hunter pulled up a shirt from where he’d discarded it in the middle of the fast frenzy in what was probably his victim’s guilty pleasure and what was a rather routine hunt for him. He spared a moment to rub his fingers against the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache that he was bound to get from the <em>guilt</em> his conscience muttered.
</p><p> But he’d long since known when he’d been old enough to pull souls from the unsuspecting, what manner of souls he was willing to tarnish and what souls he was willing to leave alone.
</p><p> “Hey lover boy, what’s the rush?” the redhead asked from the rug, trying to pull him back.
</p><p> There was a twinge of annoyance because though he’d deceived her into falling into bed—or floor—with him, he’d been clear that it was a one-night stand. “Don’t you have a fiancé to get back to?”
</p><p> She recoiled a little at that. Yeah well, she had been more than willing to cheat on the smug-faced bastard a little while ago, so she didn’t have the moral high ground here. If she left the douche bastard, then all the more soul-bright for Hunter. “Can’t I have your number?”
</p><p> So that she could cheat with him again and again? “No.” That had never been his style. Besides there wasn’t anything in it for him: tarnish a soul too much and it was useless as a bargaining chip, take it whole and he’d be sending the soul straight to a crossroads demon for the standard ten-year contract. In his entire twenty years stealing soul-pieces he’d only managed to send one soul to a crossroads demon. He’d promised himself never to do something like that again.
</p><p> Abaddon wasn’t really into the whole crossroads demon thing. Good thing Crowley was still lurking in Hell’s underground. How fucked up was his life that he was viewing Crowley as the lesser of two evils? <em>Goddamnit, where is my shoe?
  </em>
</p><p> It was then that Hunter noticed his little one-night stand dangling the missing item from one of her fingers. He snatched it from her wordlessly, dressing up and preparing to leave. She trailed her fingers against his right shoulder, caressing his birthmark before he flinched and shot her a glare.
</p><p> “You want to stay a while?” She asked conversationally, watching him from under her eyelashes. Hunter thought she might just be hoping to get lucky, but then he’d watched her for weeks. It was a hunt, after all, one of the easiest types of hunts, she was just lonely. She was also getting married to a class A douchebag, so what did he know?
</p><p> “Got something to do, lady,” Hunter muttered as he opened one of the vials found in his pocket, and with a flash and a small pop, it was filled with a bright soul piece and the woman was unconscious.
</p><p> Hunter tugged his shirt down, secured the soul-piece shut and started to walk away. He looked back at the redhead, she’d fallen artlessly on the floor. He grimaced, yeah, there was his goddamned conscience again.
</p><p> He pulled her up from the floor and laid her in the middle of the motel bed, leaving a soft kiss on her forehead. “Sorry, it’s for family.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>oOo</p>
</div><p> Hunter slapped down the soul-piece in the middle of the bar’s counter. Pharzuph, fallen angel that he was, snatched it up appraisingly lifting it against the light and eyeing the soul glow critically. Hunter could never get the difference between soul pieces he brought, but apparently, there were plenty, if the soul-piece was willing or not, if Hunter had taken it because his victim had lied, cheated. The seven cardinal sins were always shinier, things that went against the Ten Commandments always earned more but Hunter could never get himself to tempt a poor soul for that.
</p><p> “This is barely enough for a month’s rent, boy,” Pharzuph criticized, putting the soul piece away. Hunter seethed internally, he was fucking twenty-six, getting called boy by every other person could give him issues. Of course, every other <em>person</em> he knows was a long-lived demon older than a hundred so what did he know? “Much less feeding that worthless soul you’re protecting.”
</p><p> Hunter knew that his victim had been on the verge of cheating when he’d entered the scene and tempted her. Urging her to kill the bastard fiancé might have gotten him a brighter soul piece, an entire soul even, but that would have earned her a one-way ticket to Hell. He wasn’t that heartless. Not yet. He might have been born under Inferno’s shadow, and he might have been raised by demons, but he’d been born with an indestructible sense of right. How that came about he had no idea.
</p><p> Pharzuph eyed him critically as if he’d known what was going through Hunter’s mind. “You’d best wield that pretty face of yours to earn your keep, human, else we’d just be riding that meat-suit and do nasty things with it.”
</p><p> “You just want some of this ass,” Hunter challenged. Although he couldn’t imagine bumping uglies with Pharzuph. And really, he could have done without that mental image. Pharzuph was attractive enough with blond hair, the dark-blue grey of storm clouds for eyes and always, always radiated sex. No matter what gender. Hunter had watched the fallen angel turn a completely straight man into a night of debauchery once, and Pharzuph looked like a man’s man. Pharzuph clearly knew what he was doing.
</p><p> “I should take that up as a challenge, boy.” Pharzuph’s eyes glittered with the warning but he inclined his head towards the right into the double doors that lead to the back rooms that included both Hunter’s rooms and their boss’ office. “But Boss wants you.”
</p><p> Right, out of the frying pan and into the fire then. He gave Pharzuph one careless grin before ducking out into the boss’ hallway. By the time he’d ducked into Crowley’s L-shaped office and was standing in front of the King of the Crossroad’s desk, the smirk had been wiped off his face.
</p><p> In front of Crowley were vials that looked suspiciously like all the soul-pieces that Hunter had scrounged up the past month. Goddamnit, it was a performance review. Hunter hated those. This had sneaked up on him abruptly.
</p><p> “Take a seat,” Crowley said motioning to one of the chairs in front of him. Crowley had the most uncomfortable chairs inside Inferno. Mostly because it amused him to see people who visited him fidget under his gaze.
</p><p> “I’d prefer to—“
</p><p> “Take a seat.” One of the chairs moved.
</p><p> Hunter didn’t want to wait before Crowley started flinging demon powers around and strapped him to the goddamn chair. Hunter took a seat. <em>Go self-preservation, one point for you.</em> Hunter cleared his throat. “Hey, boss, what’s up?”
</p><p> “You’ve been underperforming,” Crowley said, as he touches the vials of glowing soul pieces in front of him.
</p><p> “I’ve been doing a long haul plan,” Hunter corrected. Because if there was something that Crowley appreciated it was a long-term plan. Of course, Hunter still had to come up with this long haul plan of his.
</p><p> Crowley steepled his fingers and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes at Hunter. Hunter felt his brow sweat a little. Kings have broken on that gaze. “You do know why I took you on, Hun, right?”
</p><p> Crowley did know how to pick his nicknames, Hunter thought with mild distaste. He couldn’t actually protest the name or else Crowley would latch on to the irritation and jab at it again and again. It would be better to let it slide. “Dear old mom was fortunate enough to get captured by demons and get killed in Inferno?”
</p><p> Hunter, in fact, did not remember his mother. The earliest memories that he had were living in Inferno’s broken rooms with an equally broken soul as his roommate. He’d been given the name “Hunter” because his mother was a hunter and the soul he was bunking with was a hunter, so hunter he was. That and the entire Winchester Gospels had started a new religion. It amused the demons to call him that.
</p><p> “You proved you’re one of the freak humans who could get a soul. You’ve even evolved to a point that you could take pieces of it instead of a whole. Even Death couldn’t break off pieces. I keep you because you’re <em>useful.</em>” Underneath those words was the threat that if he ever stopped being useful, Hunter was out of a job and out of a roof over his head. More importantly, he’d get the soul he was protecting thrown back into Hell, and he wasn’t willing to risk <em>that</em>. The job and the roof weren’t much of a problem, Hunter was a survivor, he’d survive being homeless and broke, but he couldn’t abandon the only family he’d ever known.
</p><p> “Yeah, well, I fly under Abbadouche’s radar. All your red eye demons get under her scrutiny and they get killed. Violently and irrevocably,” Hunter pointed out, also another truth that Crowley couldn’t deny. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a good idea to point out Crowley’s weaknesses to his face. Hunter was just full of brilliant ideas today wasn’t he? “I’m a human harvesting souls. She’s got bigger fish to fry.”
</p><p> “You getting cocky, Hun?” Crowley asked his eyes narrowed.
</p><p>  <em>
   Careful. Careful.
  </em>
</p><p> “I’m just saying, Boss.” Especially since Crowley is the underdog in this entire vote for Hell business that has been going on for longer than Hunter has been alive. Abaddon was cutting a swathe of blood across Hell, winning over demons with her fist. Crowley whispering for votes was losing because she was killing anyone who didn’t agree. She was ruthless that way.
</p><p> Crowley didn’t say anything and Hunter resisted the urge to fidget. Crowley respected people who could face him down. Being in a demon family was worse than being in the Mafia. At least if he got dead with the mob, Hunter was sure he’d be done. There was no done with demons. If he managed to die on them, he was sure his soul was blackened enough to earn him a few hundred years on the rack. He sincerely did not want to test the theory. Hunter’s solution had always been: keep himself fucking alive.
</p><p> “Hey, boss, do you ever see my soul?” Hunter asked, mostly because he was curious, but also because it would break the silence, and he did not have a brain-to-mouth filter.
</p><p> Crowley gave him an honest to goodness laugh. Hunter didn’t know if he should join in or not. “What? You think you can pay for your debt by selling your soul? If you want a real appraisal while it’s in your body, without a contract, you need a feather-duster. Although I doubt that you’ll get close enough with one to become chatty, what with the sticks up their asses.”
</p><p> Well, at least Crowley had answered the question. It was probably why demons took souls as a whole rather than piece-meal as Hunter can. Not that demons took souls in pieces pre-Abaddon purges. But since it was more dangerous for red-eyed demons if the soul stealing, contract-wielding was noticed by the Queen of Hell, then pieces it was. Hunter gave Crowley a grin. “Well, I’ll tell you if I meet up with one then.”
</p><p> “Ahh to be a fly on the wall for that meet. I would watch just to see if you can charm your way out of their smiting spree.” Amusement over, Crowley’s eyes steeled. “This is a business, I am trying to take over Hell, do your part and you won’t get stranded. Git.”
</p><p> Audience over, Hunter found himself staring at the closed door in front of the office. <em>Damnit</em> he hated it when demons moved him out of place. It was unnerving as hell to be standing after his muscles remember sitting. Hunter sighed as he backed away. Right, performance review over. Moving on.
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>oOo</p>
</div><p> Hunter lived in a small room at the back of Inferno, it had a bed, enough porn to satisfy lonely nights, and an old LCD that he could load those ancient TiVos with. He was still going through one of those ancient <em>Game of Thrones</em> series when he had time. Not that he had a lot.
</p><p> His roommate was in, disheveled, but mostly whole. The man was gone an entire day so that was an entire four months in Hell, give or take a few hours. Hunter picked up a small vial, which he usually kept on his person. It was a soul piece that he kept from the others, dipping his fingers in and smearing it across his roommate's cuts. He was glared at and he almost spilled the rest of the vial.
</p><p> Hunter glared back. “<em>John</em>, you’re not seriously going to refuse treatment. You almost said yes the <em>last</em> time.” What Crowley was trying to accomplish Hunter had no idea. According to the Winchester Gospels, Crowley wasn’t pro-Apocalypse, he was just plain pro-Crowley. Having John Winchester back in the rack didn’t seem like a pro-Crowley move.
</p><p> Hunter’s roommate had been in Inferno for ages. How Crowley got a hold of John Winchester’s soul after the man crawled out of Hell, Hunter would never know, but he’d been here since Hunter was born and was, in fact, the only family Hunter had ever known. 
</p><p> “It doesn’t mean I have to like it, boy,” John growled eyeing the vial as if it was the plagues itself. Maybe it was. Hunter had lived with demons long enough not to look at it that way.
</p><p> “Look, I seriously take enough of that ‘boy‘ crap from the demons. I have a name—“
</p><p> “What you have is what those black-eyes gave you, Dean,” John growled.
</p><p> “Yes, because you insist on calling me some saint’s name, could you please move on?” Hunter said, patiently capping his soul piece and hiding it in his pocket. “I ain’t a saint, John.” 
</p><p> “You have your anti-possession tattoo?” John asked urgently.
</p><p> Hunter sighed and lifted his shirt. He’d gotten it on his left hip to match the Enochian ones on his right. The ones hiding his soul. So yeah no one can actually soul-stare him because he was protected by angel-script. He’d been in the soul business long enough to know that any soul-farmer needed to be hidden from angels. “You’re worse than my father.”
</p><p> “You never knew your father—“
</p><p> “Call me boy one more time and I’m leaving you here,” Hunter threatened, pulling his shirt down and throwing himself on the bed. He needed some shut-eye and maybe a bottle of good whiskey, but he absolutely hated drinking. He couldn’t touch a bottle without throwing up. He must have angered the gods of whiskey in a previous life. That or he’d died on a binge.
</p><p> There was a stretch of silence and Hunter opened one eye cautiously. John wasn’t creepily staring at him, but his head was hung low in sorrow. “I dunno, son, I think it’s time that you moved on from this. I will manage well on my own, I have been managing.”
</p><p> That got Hunter shooting up from his bed. If John had been corporeal he would have shaken him by the shoulders. Damnit, self-sacrificing <em>ghosts</em> will be the end of him. “They want you for something John, they want you to spill blood in Hell, right? I might not have finished the entire thing, but I’ve read enough of the Winchester Gospels to know that they think <em>you’re</em> the Righteous Man. So yes, I might be in a crappy place right now, but you ain’t breaking the seals. Not on my watch.”
</p><p> John had told Hunter once that they crammed him up in Inferno because intermittently, Abaddon raids the rack. Crowley didn’t want anyone to know that he had John Winchester, because hello, ace up the sleeve. But Hunter’s room had been the only room they could keep a ghost in. Conversely, it was also the only room that they could keep a human baby in as well. Most of the rooms held demons that would eat a baby alive. It was how John had ended up half raising Hunter.
</p><p> Which is why John kept projecting Dean over to Hunter. Hunter let the old man do it most days. There were worse things than being called “Dean.” God knows John Winchester kept enough baggage for both of them. “John, stop, just… If you don’t want treatment then at least get some pretend shut eye until the next round of torture.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>oOo</p>
</div><p> After Hunter’s last soul-mark, the entire cheating on husband slash fiancé slash significant other left a sour taste in his mouth. So he’d ended up in one of the Biggerson chains spread across the Tower Cities and leaned against the corner booth and just observed.
</p><p> Of course, being a farmer perpetually left that sour taste in his mouth, but what could he do? It’s not like he could get another profession while in the midst of a demon-run brothel slash soul-factory. It was a wonder the demons didn’t get him addicted to their soul-drug concoctions or make him sex starved. He’d seen a few humans that had been lured by those, he had Crowley to thank for sparing him from that at least. They said the moment he was born he had touched his mother, and Crowley stood in awe as a fraction of her soul went into him before she died. It was why Crowley had kept him alive, he was a businessman, and souls were the currency of Hell.
</p><p> He’d cleaned up some, gotten one of the ancient tablets he’d mostly refurbished, pretended to read one of those old greats that he dug up in those free internet libraries, got a cup of coffee that he was going to perpetually refill, and waited for a mark.
</p><p> He varied his hunting locations because picking up marks in a single bar got him made almost instantly, so there were always fresh picks if he circled around his usual haunts and varied the vices from time to time.
</p><p> Something distinctly non-honey trap and more pride or greed, maybe. Hunter stayed away from wrath, that got people dead quite quickly. Admittedly with his skill set, it was always easier to go with envy and lust.
</p><p> That was where he met little Jack, with his weirdest little nanny…whatever.
</p><p> Jack was probably around seven to ten, reddish curls that might earn him the name carrot top, almost out of childhood, losing chubby cheeks. His nose was dusted with freckles and he had dark grey eyes that stared up at him owlishly for a few seconds before, as if deciding something, had slid into the booth that Hunter had claimed for himself and stared at him quietly.
</p><p> That wasn’t even the most absurd thing, as someone, whom he assumed was Jack’s parent, moved over and just sat with the kid. Normally parents would apologize for their kids, no, this dude just waited until the kid was seated into the booth comfortable and boxed the kid in.
</p><p> Hunter stared at them for a few minutes in disbelief before clearing his throat. “What?”
</p><p> The kid gave him a toothy smile, complete set of pearly whites, which told Hunter that he was a cared for child, with enough dentist visits and would probably be missed if he up and decided to take him. “I’m Jack. You looked like you needed a friend.”
</p><p> What Hunter needed was a mark. An honest to goodness mark that would fill his soul quota for a month. Jack, young as he was, would be a good little kidnap victim if he tested good enough for a soul shard but not with weird dad on his trail.
</p><p> Hunter raised his eyebrow, made a swift hand motion towards his tablet so that it would close on its own before looking around Biggerson’s. Admittedly Biggerson’s was a family place. Hunter came here looking for sloth or maybe a kid he could tempt into lifelong drugs. He wasn’t picky, but Hunter drew the line at kids that barely reached his hip.
</p><p> “Dunno, kid, I don’t think I’m the type of friend your dad would approve of,” Hunter cautioned nodding towards the guy in a trench coat that had accompanied the boy.
</p><p> Jack’s eyes rounded before he looked at his companion. “I told you he was special!”
</p><p> “Indeed.” Hunter was surprised at the throaty voice. It sounded like the guy gargled on gravel. Hunter took a look at the guy to find his intense stare had transferred from the kid to Hunter. “You can see me.”
</p><p> “Dude. You’re a six-foot tall guy in a flasher coat. I’d be seriously missing a few points in the observation department if I couldn’t fucking see you,” Hunter said annoyed.
</p><p> Trenchcoat-dude raised an eyebrow, then comically raised his hand to flag one of the multitude of waitresses that refilled Hunter’s table with coffee. Once that didn’t work, the guy stood up marched towards the table and actively pointed towards Hunter’s direction. All the while the waitress who’d been serving Hunter ignored the dude’s crazy antics. She walked up to Hunter leaned her hip against his table and leaned down to give a flirty smile while topping up his mug.
</p><p> “Who’s the kid?” she asked, eyeing Jack sideways, presumably deciding if the kid was worth the trouble of getting Hunter away. But Candy—as her nametag proudly proclaimed—wasn’t the type of soul Hunter was looking for either.
</p><p> “You ain’t gonna see what that dude wants?” Hunter motioned to the guy in the trenchcoat with his head. “He’s been trying to grab your attention for a while now.”
</p><p> “What dude?” Candy asked in the puzzled tones of the truly lost as she turned towards where Hunter was pointing. She shrugged and gave Hunter a weirded out look before backing away slowly with her carafe of coffee. “You need to lay off the caffeine.”
</p><p> As soon as the man slid into his seat, Hunter threw a fistful of salt that he’d gotten when Candy was talking to him. It earned him an annoyed look from the man and strangled laughter from Jack.
</p><p> “I’m not a ghost,” the man muttered as he dusted off the salt that was clinging on to his coat.
</p><p> “He’s my Guardian!” Jack announced as he leaned forward, elbows on the table and chubby cheeks resting on his fists. “Everyone important has one.”
</p><p> Hunter felt the beginning of a headache as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He needed a mark, not a kid with his guardian scaring away his game. “Look, kid—“
</p><p> “Jack, I think what he wants to say is, we need to leave.” The man in the trenchcoat said softly to his young charge.
</p><p> Jack’s brow furrowed as he turned towards the adult. “But...we’re meant to be here, now. We’re meant to see him today, Cas. I just—“ The kid started to get frustrated as if he couldn’t form the words he wants to say and looked up helplessly at his guardian—Cas.
</p><p> “He’s warded,” Cas told his charge, and Hunter’s eyebrows lifted easily at that. A guide, invisible to most other people, that can sense wards. Who was this Cas dude, and <em>what</em> exactly was he? What was this kid that he needed this guy’s protection? More trouble than they’re worth, for starters. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”
</p><p> “Warded!” Jack’s eyes lit up, leaning closer to Hunter. “Could I see? My first confession is coming up and my mom wants me to choose a Word for my protection and my penance.”
</p><p> A Word for protection and penance meant that the kid belonged to the Church of the Hunter’s Cross. Which doubly meant that he should not associate with the kid at all, because if there was one thing about the Cross, it meant that down the line, this kid had a hunter’s upbringing and a hunter’s family. They might not be actively <em>hunting</em> but he probably had a grandfather or a cousin twice removed that was actually a hunter.
</p><p> Hunter had gotten his own tattoos free from the church because he knew that their words were actually Enochian sigils burned into flesh. They worked and he was not turning down a free tattoo. That, and he really didn’t want to get it from a demon. “Dude,” Hunter reprimanded as Jack dodged down the table and scrambled up to his seat trying to guess where the tattoos were.
</p><p> Cas furrowed his brow at the exchange. “Jacob.”
</p><p> The boy stopped as if suddenly realizing that he had trespassed over multiple social boundaries. “Sorry, Cas.”
</p><p> Cas gave a little nod towards Hunter and the boy sheepishly turned towards him and mumbled a small apology as well. “It’s just that, it’s him, Cas. He’s important.”
</p><p> “Look, kid,” Hunter said in exasperation. “I don’t know where you’re getting these vibes, but I’m practically a nobody. Go back to your playground.”
</p><p> The kid had moved out of the chair and gave him one last look before taking Cas’ hand. “We’ll meet again, sir.”
</p><p> As soon as the kid was gone, Hunter just decided that prey was decidedly short that day and he’d move on to one of his other haunts while the kid was still there.
</p><p> “This was your long haul plan? I approve.” The only thing that saved him from jumping in surprise from Crowley’s sudden appearance was years’ worth of facial training, demon desensitization, and an awful lot of luck.
</p><p>  <em>
   Say what now? </em>Hunter wanted to utter because he was decidedly <em>not</em> getting anywhere with <em>any</em> program. Hunter gave Crowley his best blank look. The good thing about demons was that they couldn’t read your mind <em>unless </em>they were in your body, as opposed to angels who could <em>read freaking minds</em> unless you have the handy Enochian on your hip.
</p><p> “I do love myself a little prophet and getting the trenchcoat into the deal is a sweetener as well.” Crowley clasped his hands together as he leaned forward to look at Hunter and narrowed his eyes. “Unless you didn’t know that and just happened to stumble onto the prophet of this age and his guardian angel, the somewhat newly anointed—give or take a few thousand years—Keeper of the Throne.”
</p><p> The only thing that had a word association with Cas, trenchcoat and guardian angel was an obscure angel reference in the Winchester Gospels. He didn’t remotely understand how that entire slew of problems could drop on his lap because he was a virtual nobody in the entire demon slash mob hierarchy and he shouldn’t be getting fun-freaking-tastic angels and prophets dropped into his lap.
</p><p> “I know what Cas and the kid are,” Hunter protested. But actually no, he didn’t. Ever since the Winchester Gospels started to have a cult following a lot of the masses had started naming their children with Castiel and some of those children grew up to become trenchcoat wielding freaks. So yes, it wasn’t usual to stumble upon a Cas and a trenchcoat and just think angel of the Lord. The angels haven’t actively meddled in human affairs since the Second Fall with the closing of the Gates. They had their own problems.
</p><p> The problem with reading the Gospel of Chuck was that: Chuck happened to be born in the age where information was rather prevalent and Chuck had written himself into the gospels. Around the fourth year of its publication, there were so many written accounts of the gospel then referred to as—and Hunter just cringed to think of it—fanfiction, that even scholars found it difficult to separate what were actual Words of God and which were merely very, very good imitations.
</p><p> Then there was the part where entire sections of religious studies devoted to arguing whether Chuck was simply a prophet or he was the Lord walking around with his people. Hunter didn’t care to believe one or the other.
</p><p> The Gospel of Chuck, together with a later published Gospel of Kevin, comprised two of the books in the canonical gospels of Winchester. Between those two books were supposedly the Epistolary of Castiel, and the Winchester gospels finally finished with the Epistolary of Samuel. That was more than enough for a non-hunter to know period. The only reason he actually knew that was because he had needed to learn a bit of the religion so he could get his protection tattoos.
</p><p> Maybe he should go and actually finish reading those goddamned books. Crowley might not be on to something, but pleasing the hand that tried not to choke Hunter to death might earn him a break the next time there was a lull in the entire soul-harvesting thing.
</p><p> “I’m sure,” Crowley said dryly, eyeing Hunter speculatively.
</p><p> “Any special requests, boss?” Hunter asked, because there was simply no way to be subtle around Crowley. The human picked up the coffee cup and pretended to sip, it gave his hands something to do other than fidget and display panic and Crowley did not appreciate panic.
</p><p> “If you could get me a fragment of the boy’s soul that would be good, the entirety of it would be better.” Crowley drummed his fingers against the laminated tabletop eyes narrowed. “But what would be bloody brilliant is if you could get me the angel’s grace. A soul, prophet or not, is a dime a dozen. Grace on the other hand—grace is more difficult to get than virginity from a nun.”
</p><p> Grace. What did Hunter fucking know about grace? Zilch that was what. Great, dammit, and where the hell will he get that knowledge without bartering something he considered irrevocable? Hunter gave out a low whistle. “Sure, boss, whatever you want that I can give.”
</p><p> “I do appreciate a good boot licking when I see it.” Crowley murmured with a satisfied sigh. “Wear more plaid, try to deepen your voice, you don’t look  Winchester enough. You lack the symmetrical face and those goddamned pouty lips. But you’ll do. He’s not going to expect a replica, that’s not how reincarnation works.”
</p><p> Hunter almost inhaled the coffee he was pretending to sip. “What? <em>John</em> mistakes me as his son more often than not already.”
</p><p> “That’s the idea, you wanker.” Crowley rolled his eyes. “That trenchcoat has one weakness: Dean Winchester. The last intel I received was that his soul is lost on Earth because he decided to get reborn, for whatever reason running around in that little squirrelly mind of his. You’ll do as a copy. That little soldier has always had a stiffy for Winchester. He will <em>want</em> to <em>believe,</em> he’ll believe any copy.”
</p><p> “With a bit of skepticism. We’re not talking about Mulder here. He’s an angel of the Lord,” Hunter pointed out putting down his cup of cold coffee before there were more mishaps.
</p><p> “Those gits are programmed to believe.” Crowley tapped on Hunter’s old tablet and it lit up once before going back to sleep mode. “That is your poison, isn’t it? Selling the lie? Go sell the goddamned lie.”
</p><p> Those were the last words before Crowley disappeared on him. Hunter scrambled to hold the tablet, his eyebrow rising, when he finally found what Crowley had given him. An entire section worth of the Winchester’s gospels. He opened one file and his eyebrow rose further. It contained creative insults littering the margins of the kind the former King of the Crossroads was known for. Included in those side notes was a whole lot of commentary that the usual Bible didn’t contain, presumably helpful to sell the con.
</p><p> Hunter shoved the tablet into one of the larger pockets of his coat. Apparently, he had his next mark. Good to know.
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope you like this beginning :D Sometimes it's very difficult with new characters, but well... reincarnation is a bitch and we need to speak about Heaven a bit. I hope you have faith with me on this ride.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being a guide was time-consuming work that bred both patience and discipline, Castiel thought. Jack, unlike Dean Winchester, was given to Castiel’s watch from the moment of birth. And while his function as a guardian was different this time around, it was still right that he would stand and watch. The angel had watched the boy with the patience of an immortal. A child just born had little to no intervention needed since their parents, ever-loving as they were, kept close heed of a newly made child.</p><p>It had been when Jack was old enough to walk and get into trouble, that Castiel suddenly and fiercely remembered his last charge. And while the most trouble Jack got into was trying to eat his toys or trying to stick his hand down most unnatural mechanical things that humans kept to make their lives better, he followed his father around with the hero worship that all young boys held.</p><p>Once when Castiel flared his wing out to catch the boy from tripping over the stairs, Jack gave the angel a toothy grin and tried to brush his wings. Castiel gave the boy the smallest smile and sent him on his way. Unlike his previous assignment, where he’d been required to act as a soldier and as a friend, this one needed him to be a mentor. He carried out his duty unseen by most other humans, especially since he read to the child at almost every waking moment. No matter how strong the cloak though, Jack managed to find him unerringly. The youngest humans were still closest to their newly gifted souls, they could pierce the veil and could still see angels.</p><p>But as Jack grew older and grew into his sense of self, Castiel realized that it wasn’t just a child’s newly minted soul that made the guardian angel visible to his charge. It was also because that was the boy’s ability. There was no doubt that the boy was a prophet, all prophet names were seared into the angelic code when they were all created, but other than the prophetic, he could see the supernatural without the benefit of the veil. No other immortal could hide from the boy. He was a stronger prophet than even Kevin had been.</p><p>Since the Second Fall, when the Gates had been temporarily closed, all angels had been called back into Heaven, and contact with humans had been limited to observation. Angels became myth and legend as they were wont to do. Humans were more prone to believe demons existed than angels just as Sam and Dean had those years before Castiel came into their lives via a barn and the shadow of wings. When Jack was younger, his parents dismissed his ramblings about his angel as the creativity of a young mind.</p><p>One such instance happened when Jack was three years old. He walks up to his mother, Gertrude out of the blue and asks, "Mom, what happens to us when we die?"</p><p>His mother, entirely unprepared for an existential question from her son, was flabbergasted and at the verge of panicking, searched for an explanation that her child could grasp. But before she could form a half-coherent response, Jack hits his palm against his forehead comically. </p><p>"Oh, nevermind, mom. I remember." Curious, Gertrude gives her son an encouraging smile, so Jack continues, "we become new again."</p><p>Jack had such an affinity for life beyond the veil and the Guf, the Repository of Souls, before souls were transferred to the babies that in another instance he tells his father about the Treasury. "We're all light there, like little fireflies but teeny-tiny five-year-olds."</p><p>His father indulges him with his so-called imaginings that Jack tells tales with big gestures. </p><p>"So we're all hanging out in this big treasury box under the Throne of God, we're like a <em>big </em>class there waiting until we pick the right parents. When we choose them, Gabriel carries us over to the Tree of Life so we can mature and Leihla tells us all sorts of stories about God the Father.</p><p>We wait at the tree for weeks until we fall into the waterfalls before we enter our mommies. Then we wait for a couple of months and once we really really want to be born our moms go to the hospital and you have a brand new baby!"</p><p>There are appropriate appreciative noises at Jack's imagination, but Castiel knew that it was a memory rather than some fantasy. </p><p>Castiel worried because mundane parents having children with unnatural abilities never ended well. There comes the point that indulgence bleeds to an annoyance, or possibly fear. This happens when Jack is seven and stops at a park, waiting for Castiel to walk over to him. His mother takes Jack's hand and tugs. "Let's go, Jacob."</p><p>Castiel shakes his head no, but Jack had not understood what Cas meant. "I'm waiting for Cas, mom," and he points at Cas—who since guarding Jack—was invisible to most human eyes.</p><p>His mother looks at the mostly empty park and her lips thin. It was a hard day for Jack when he realized that he couldn’t tell <em>anyone </em>about Castiel. He’d ended up being sent to his room for making up stories, and the other kids had just been hard on him when he said he had a guardian.</p><p>Castiel had never understood why prophets were set up to live such solitary lives. Castiel sat down on Jack’s bed, silent, as he always was whenever watching his charges. He had warned Jack that not a lot of people would understand him when they referred to Castiel, and sometimes having his own guardian angel was a curse. It was times like those that he felt the loss of Dean’s presence acutely and he would have gone to his friend for advice on how to go about guiding the prophet.</p><p>“Jack,” Cas had said once the little boy had stopped petulantly hiding under his blankets. “Let’s be secret friends instead. One that your parents don’t know about.”</p><p>“You said kids don’t lie to their parents,” Jack accused.</p><p>One of the other problems of raising a prophet was their nigh-perfect memory for details. It’s how they manage to write their prophecies and their stories. Jack hasn’t come to his full power yet, he has no prophecies yet to give. “Okay, what would Dean do?” Castiel asked because he wasn’t above using the hero-worship of the boy to get his way. </p><p>“Dean wouldn’t need to prove you were here. All his friends know angels exist,” Jack answered, he threw off the blankets, sulk fully over. That was one thing with Jack, he had ever-changing moods. “Could you ask Sam, please?”</p><p>Castiel gave his charge a fond smile and a promise that he would consult the younger Winchester. That conversation was what started more regular visits with Sam Winchester, and those, in turn, had helped tremendously with watching and befriending a human child.</p><p>Watching Jack had been relatively peaceful until finally, on Jack’s ninth summer, which had been bound to be forgettable but wasn’t, Jack stilled in the middle of eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, looked at Castiel, and said, “We’re meeting someone soon. Someone important.”</p><p> In the more than a millennia that Castiel had served, never had he been unnerved more by a prediction from his charge. As soon as Jack slept, Castiel had flown towards Sam.</p><p>He had startled the man, who he had found lounging with Jess, the first and last real love of his life, back at the large fireplace doing what most couples did in their warm lazy days when they just wanted to be together. Sam never did get to marry when he had been alive, despite Dean’s heavy encouragement—from Heaven no less—because Jess was already dead and he'd found someone else. </p><p>They both looked up and smiled when they spotted him uneasily standing between the doorway, one foot in one foot out, unsure of his welcome. Unlike the time when he had no idea of social norms, he felt like interrupting Sam now while he had his arms around Jess was impolite.</p><p>Sam, on the other hand, didn’t look worried. His smile didn’t falter when he spotted the angel and waved him inside the room, Jess’ smile mirroring his own. “Hey there, stranger,” Jess said teasingly, stretching her arms on the large comfortable sofa they never had in real life. The entire room looked like their housing in Stanford but had been updated when they decided that living the college life was nice and good when they had been on a scholar’s allowance, but could be improved upon now they had the unlimited resources of Heaven. “It’s been a while.”</p><p>“I just visited a few weeks ago, when Jack decided that he wanted a K-2SO and I didn’t know what that meant,” Castiel reminded her pulling up one of the chairs and sitting while Jess burst out laughing. Rogue One had been long after the info dump Metatron had given him on pop culture, and sadly Castiel still didn’t have time to update himself. Jess scrambled up from her position to pat his head before leaving the room, giving him some alone time with Sam.</p><p> “Going out to jog, Sam, maybe crossing over the gate to mom and dad?” Jess informed him before taking one of the leashes for the dogs.</p><p> One of the advantages of having the angels back again and having them patrol the third heaven was mortals could ask for gates between two doorways to be built. As long as the two mortals on both ends were consenting, the doorways were made and heaven became less an isolated island and more like a small community of close friends and relatives.</p><p>While the reason angels had restricted humans to individual heavens was because of malcontent, it was human nature to be jealous and envious and sometimes plain adversarial, Ash’s doorways made the restriction obsolete. So humans were now permitted and malcontent brought about because of the mixing… was dealt with by asking if they wanted their heavens permanently isolated. Not a lot of human souls opted for that choice, and mostly heaven’s denizens got along.</p><p>“Sure thing, hon,” Sam said as he took a seat opposite the angel and lifted an eyebrow. “So what’s up Cas?”</p><p>Castiel took the time to think about the answer because the standard looking up and checking out Sam’s ceiling did not seem to be what Sam meant by ‘what’s up.’ Sam grinned; he was more adept at picking up when Cas failed at colloquialisms, especially since Sam’s colloquialisms were probably already more than a thousand years outdated by Castiel’s standards. “Jack seems to think we’re meeting someone important soon, but I still haven’t found Dean.”</p><p>“So, maybe it’s someone who’s going to lead you to Dean,” Sam suggested. “Why are you worried, Cas?”</p><p>Castiel wondered if Dean would have asked him that question in Sam’s place, or would he have known inherently what was causing the angel’s distress over the Righteous Man’s reincarnation. “There’s also the possibility that he’s not. Dean might not have been given a role so close to the apocalypse now. If Jack and I meet anyone important, I might not be able to find time to look for Dean.”</p><p>Sam frowned and tensed his jaw, all traces of the lazy morning gone from his visage. “Dean decided to get reincarnated for a reason. I told you I was willing to go down and get reincarnated so I could lead you to him.”</p><p> “When we realized what he had done, at least ten Earth years had already passed.” Sam had matched his heaven with the time arrow of Earth for now, because he was waiting for Dean as much as Dean had waited for Sam the first time. Castiel continued, “but you have Jess now, your brother wouldn’t want you to abandon her.”</p><p>Once a soul gets reincarnated, it changes them. And Dean surely wouldn’t want Sam to leave Jess until Sam was ready. There was a chance that if Sam got reincarnated he would get separated from Jess indefinitely because Jess had never been Sam’s soulmate. It had always been Dean.</p><p>Sam ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Dean wouldn’t have walked out on us if it wasn’t important. The reason might have been stupid, but mostly it would be because he’s stupidly loyal.” Sam wasn’t saying things he hadn’t repeated before the first time they’d realized Dean had walked out of his own personal heaven and wasn’t just exploring the edges of the Shehaqim – the third heaven. He had gone down to the Tree of Life and asked for a reincarnation. Before Gabriel had actually checked the Tree, they thought he was coming back.</p><p>There was something that Castiel was missing. They had all realized rather quickly <em> how </em> Dean was reincarnated. Despite the angels being back in the circles, Dean still visited the Tree. Gabriel already admonished Dean about the entire soul-fiasco, then imprinted his grace with the tree more strongly so that the Tree wouldn’t latch on to Dean instead. But the Tree, being sentient, as most vital things in Heaven were, still recognized Dean as important.</p><p>What Castiel didn’t understand was the why. Even Sam couldn’t understand why Dean would choose to be reincarnated. Sometimes he wondered if he had understood the older Winchester at all.</p><p>Castiel paused, tilting his head to the side to listen better. Jack was praying, and it always felt like a small whisper when his charges called out in soft prayer. Sam gave Castiel his space, already knowing from long association with Cas that he was intent on his charge back on Earth. “Sorry,” Cas excused himself. “Jack is about to go to bed and was telling me about the dinner that I missed.”</p><p> “Jack’s turning out all right.”</p><p>“Yes.” Castiel smiled ruefully, pleased that his charge was coping well despite being touched by angels. “Well, he isn’t in a mental institution, yet.”</p><p>Sam’s face quickly turned into the stillness of awkward and not quite shock. If there was one thing Castiel learned, it was that the young Winchester still did not understand Castiel’s brand of humor. “Yeah, all right, Cas.”</p><p>A week later, Cas and Jack met the man at a Biggerson’s booth who saw angels when no one else could.</p><p>oOo</p><p>Hunter ended up reading in the middle of Inferno because John was having a fitful rest in his room and Hunter was loathe to interrupt any form of shut-eye the ghost got. It didn’t matter that John probably didn’t need the rest in terms of the physical body, Hunter was sure that some R&amp;R would do the ghost some good.</p><p>Inferno shared a doorway to the City of Dis in Hell and its backdoors opened up into level sixty-six, one of the seedier parts of the Tower Cities. Both doorways were regulated, and while it was easy to get <em> into </em> Inferno, it cost a pretty penny and a pound of both soul and flesh to crossover using a different doorway than what you entered. But because it had two doorways, it was a popular haunt to do business transactions between those who were topside and those below. </p><p>It was also a back door to and from the towers which was built on top of a Devil’s trap and reinforced by salt in its walls. The Devil’s trap by nature allows things in and keeps them in, the salt keeps the demons out. A demon couldn’t enter the Tower Cities through its front gates because of the salt, but with some bargaining, they could enter <em>this </em>particular tower if they paid the price because Inferno had been built as a quantum superposition. It was inside the tower, but completely present in Hell. They could bargain for souls that summoned them if they were so inclined. It was a mystery how Crowley got this place, but it was a one-up over Abaddon’s.</p><p>In Inferno’s off time though, it was silent enough to afford Crowley’s chosen staff a place to lounge around while preparing it for another night of debauchery. Hell’s denizens might not have night and day, but Earth certainly had, so Inferno had its ‘office hours’, so to speak. Hunter slid into the bar, using its light to read, while Pharzuph eyed him speculatively.</p><p>“You’re reading,” Pharzuph said in deadpan.</p><p>“Yes, sometimes I pick up e-books,” Hunter huffed as he swiped the page of the tablet to shift pages. “Sometimes, I even understand them.”</p><p>Pharzuph stopped wiping the table, his fingers circling Hunter’s intimately before leaning over to read the title. “The Winchester Gospels? That’s heavy reading for you. I did appear briefly there.”</p><p>Hunter closed the reader, disengaging Pharzuph’s hand from his. No matter how uncomfortable Hunter was with Pharzuph’s sexual innuendo and flirtations, first-hand information, no matter how brief, was still first-hand information. “Which part?”</p><p>Pharzuph put away the rag he had been using, giving up all pretense of actually working. “Before I came to the dignified work that I have here,” Pharzuph waggled his eyebrows suggestively and waved around at the bottles of souls glinting under Inferno’s light before tapping Hunter’s tablet. “I was imprisoned close to Lilith along with my brothers. The opening of the Devil’s Gate was a sure winner.”</p><p>“Wait, wait,” Hunter interrupted. “You’re an escaped demon that they rounded up after that? Sort of like John? Who were you?”</p><p>“You humans and your need for names.” Pharzuph shook his head. “I took a female host the last time I was topside. I believe they referred to me as Lust in the books.”</p><p>“Lust… as in the seven deadly sins lust, that Lust?” Hunter asked as Pharzuph rolled his eyes but confirmed it. Hunter almost jumped up in excitement. “You met Dean Winchester.”</p><p>“And was promptly dunked in a tub full of holy water for my efforts.” Pharzuph leaned close enough for Hunter to feel the demon’s breath on his ear and whispered, “but, there are some things worth getting exorcized for, isn’t there? A night with Dean Winchester and debauchery surely would have counted.”</p><p><em>Was Pharzuph actually coming on to him with Dean Winchester as bait? </em> Hunter thought incredulously. “Well, did you get anywhere near Winchester?”</p><p>Pharzuph placed both his hands on Hunter’s shoulders probably to do another suggestive hand-holding or whatever it was that Pharzuph did to keep his prey enticed, but Hunter gave him a slight push. “You don’t have any information for me other than you being Winchestered before you got your jollies, don’t you?”</p><p>There was a quick flash of black in Pharzuph’s eyes, and Hunter got that sometimes the demons did it for intimidation, but he’s been around them his entire life. The black flash thing was nothing but theatrics and smoke in his books.</p><p>If Pharzuph wanted him dead, he would be dead. If Pharzuph wanted him strung out on lust, he’d be that too. If there was one thing Hunter learned about Inferno, it was that demons were filled with pride and in Crowley’s lair, they wanted the thrill of the chase before they gorged down on a soul.</p><p>Hunter gave Pharzuph a defiant look before Pharzuph hissed and rubbed his cheek against Hunter’s. Hunter’s skin prickled at the contact, and he wanted to recoil immediately, but Pharzuph would definitely see it as a weakness so the human held his ground. Hunter may have won that round, but Pharzuph was still a demon and still stronger than Hunter’s human frame. </p><p>“One day, boy, I am going to string you out, fuck the cockiness out of you then take your soul out piece by fucking piece.”</p><p>“But not today,” Hunter said firmly, holding on to himself not to show disgust at Pharzuph just trying to scent him.</p><p>“No, not today,” Pharzuph laughed as he let go of him nodding towards the doorway where Crowley was giving both of them the stern eye. “One day Crowley isn’t going to be the boss of us, boy, and on that day, I might just taste you.”</p><p>Hunter didn’t even know what was creepier: thinking that was a sexual thing, or thinking that Pharzuph might want a taste of his soul. Because Hunter didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation, he had virtually no brain to mouth filter, and he did need more information, he blurted out, “I don’t even know how you could go from angel to sex freak in one breath. I thought you were dickless scumbags when you’re fully graced up.”</p><p>Pharzuph looked startled for a moment before he burst out laughing. “I had sex before I fell, mortal. Grace dulls emotions, it dulls sensation but it doesn’t negate it. Envesseled we feel differently from what humans feel but it is still <em>felt.” </em></p><p>“It is the difference between mediocre vanilla sex and pain play when an experienced hard-core submissive masochist experiences an orgasm,” Crowley contributed suddenly beside Hunter, head leaning on his knuckles watching the two of them. “What? I’ve had a couple of birds in my day.”</p><p>Imagining Crowley and whips wasn’t so difficult. Imagining him dominating an angel had Hunter’s neuron’s short-circuiting. At least he wasn’t going to get killed while Crowley was taking an active interest in his research. It just didn’t bode well if Crowley was taking such close interest that he didn’t have any secrets. “So angels can fall for a honey trap.”</p><p>“The trick for an angel that’s fully graced up and envesseled is the trap. Unlike mortals, angels do not feel the urge to procreate, they do not have animal instincts or mating drives because they were born fully formed and created by God’s power.” Crowley gave Pharzuph a cocky smile motioning for a drink. “But once you find the right honeypot. Hun, angels are natural submissives, they’re programmed to obey when they were first created.”</p><p>Hunter was always uncomfortable with Crowley and his innuendos, which didn’t make sense because they were practically in the sex industry. Hunter just didn’t get paid for it in cash and wasn’t labeled a prostitute, but his coin was sex and he’d made peace with that. </p><p>Pharzuph snorted while putting away the bottle of whiskey he’d served Crowley. “Angels naturally want a connection. It is a byproduct of the Song. They get maudlin when alone. Why do you think so many Nephilim were born back when they were allowed to walk the Earth?” </p><p>At Hunter’s lack of answer, Pharzuph shook his head. “The closer to graceless they are, the more susceptible they are to the needs of the flesh, including sex and lust. But even with full grace, ambition or the need to kneel are both strong compulsions. You just have to find the right bait.”</p><p>The right bait. And Crowley has appointed Hunter as a honey trap. Brilliant.</p><p>oOo</p><p>While Jack’s family was nominally religious, Castiel had already ascertained that his parents were more appropriately classified as uncaring believers than truly faithful. It wasn’t something that he held against them, because Castiel himself, had his own moments of extreme doubts and self-reflection.</p><p>It didn’t come as a surprise though, despite their lack of extreme religious beliefs, that Jack’s parents had planned for their child to receive the sacrament of reconciliation shortly after they believed him cured of his imaginings.</p><p>They had bought him a book of Sacred Words and asked him to choose one for himself to be held at his first confession. Religion had evolved so much since the last time Castiel had been on Earth that he had no idea why Jack had been given a text on strong Enochian runes of protection for confession.</p><p> Jack had been carrying the book around for a while, leafing through it indecisively. One afternoon, while they were in their customary wait-for-Jack’s-brother-who’s-dallying date, Jack pointed to a word and showed it to Castiel. “What do you think, Cas, this would work?”</p><p>“AB.” Castiel traced the two Enochian symbols together before sounding it out phonetically for his charge. “This means, ‘Daughter of Light.’”</p><p> </p><p>Jack grimaced before leafing through some more of the pages and looking up at Castiel. “What did Dean have?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean had a long scrollwork of Enochian carved into his ribs that Castiel had painstakingly written between one moment and the next. While it did not protect him from possession—the pentagram over his heart had effectively done that – it had hidden him from other angels. Balthazar had called it a tramp stamp, although Castiel had never understood that. “I do not think Dean received the sacrament from the church the way you’re implying, Jacob,” Castiel said kindly.</p><p>Jack furrowed his brow before rifling through the first part of the text and handing it over to Cas. Castiel looked at it curiously reading through the passages before realizing that it was a vague account of Dean first receiving his anti-possession tattoo and the next account of Castiel carving Enochian.</p><p>Castiel raised an eyebrow, the denomination spiraling off the Winchester Gospels was still mostly Christian in nature, although it was different enough that Castiel still didn’t grasp all the nuances. He wondered what Dean would have thought of it, irreverent and faithless Dean.</p><p>Castiel understood that while most who attended were hunters and hunter families, there were some that were people that hunters had saved. It seemed to be the case with Jack, since his parents were both bankers on the seventieth floor of their Tower City and only followed most hunter protocols because of the church.</p><p>“You are going to get a tattoo?” Castiel asked to confirm once he finished reading.</p><p> “No, they’re gonna give me a sorta permanent dye after confession to help ‘ground me against the dark’,” Jack informed him taking the book back and flipping to another section. “They’ll tattoo it when I’m older. Pain as penance for sins and all that.”</p><p>Castiel blinked, sometimes he couldn’t fathom how religions evolved to equating pain with penance. But as with all things Winchester, that seems to be at par with the course. And, Castiel wasn’t one to judge. “Let us go about it another way, what do you want it to say?”</p><p>Jack’s eyes rounded, probably because he hadn’t thought that Castiel would do something like that for him. “I want it to say that you’ll always protect me.”</p><p>Castiel smiled at the child fondly. Human interaction was one of the things that he missed about being a Caretaker. There was always something innocent when dealing with humans that you never experienced when you dealt with the undying. He thought Dean would have enjoyed Jack’s company given the chance to meet. “Yes, that has already been a given, Jacob. I am your Guide. But maybe something a little bit functional and aesthetically pleasing at least. It is going to be permanently emblazoned on your—”</p><p>“Butt!”</p><p>Castiel coughed, that’s also one thing he might have to talk to Jack about. Something now that he’s nine may not be as amusing when he was thirty. There might be some merit to it being impermanent now that he was young, to change once he was of age. “So, what is it that you wanted?”</p><p>Before Jack could reply, a shadow fell over the book, and Castiel looked up to find Jack’s ‘premonition’ standing uneasily waiting for their conversation to be over. Before Castiel could formulate any sort of question, Jack beat him into saying, “you came!” </p><p>The man shifted uncomfortably for a few seconds while Castiel waited for him to reply to Jack’s enthusiastic welcome. The prophet may have been the one who invited himself to this man’s seat before, but he was the one approaching them now.</p><p>He was rubbing his hand behind the back of his neck sheepishly and was projecting something completely different than the annoyed patron that he and Jack had stumbled on their first meeting. “I—look, I’m sorry I was a little—ah curt?—the last time. I was just laid off from my job and I was looking at the ads in the jobNet and—look, could I buy you guys ice cream to make up for being a douche?”</p><p>He’d said the words in one big rush that Castiel had taken the time to decipher that entire sentence before Jack had clapped his hands over ice cream and just took the guy towards the till to order.</p><p>Castiel followed them to the line—always long in Biggerson’s—before placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder in warning. The man gave Castiel an uneasy smile before holding his hand out. “The name’s Dean, by the way.” Castiel froze over the name, his hand midway between taking Dean’s and shaking it. Dean wasn’t an idiot though and he picked up on Castiel’s discomfort. “My bosses, my ex-boss, called me Hunter. It’s my last name if calling me by a saint’s name is really disturbing.”</p><p>“It’s perfectly fine. I was just surprised, that’s all,” Castiel recovered. “I didn’t realize that there were many faithful to the Third Testament here in the towers.”</p><p> Dean shifted uneasily on his feet, a little embarrassed if Castiel could read his social cues right. Humans changed their social cues and their language as fluidly as they change their belief systems. “My mom was a hunter. There’s only one religion for hunters out there.”</p><p>A hunter, in this day and age, where Abaddon was the one who ruled hell and made sure to kill any and all hunters that she crossed paths with. It was a rare breed that would admit it out in the open to a <em>stranger </em>no less. “And your mother?” </p><p>There was a brief flash of regret in this human’s eyes before Dean shook his head. “Look, Jack, what do you want for ice cream, champ?”</p><p>Castiel recognized the evasion and had he and Dean been friends, maybe the angel would have called him out on it, but he and Dean were acquaintances. He eyed the man warily from his layered on plaid, his hunter boots and the legs that weren’t bow-legged enough.</p><p> “Vanilla.” Castiel heard Jack say.</p><p>“Two vanilla scoops,” Dean said, then as an afterthought, “hand me some of that apple pie on your menu, please.”</p><p>oOo</p><p>Once the angels had settled back in their garrisons in Heaven, the Garden had started to become the verdant forest that it originally was instead of being molded like a botanical garden that fit into the scope of Dean’s mind. As it was on the first folly of man, there were cherubim guarding the gates and virtues tending the flora.</p><p>Human souls were allowed to enter for reincarnation, however, and Castiel looked at the Tree of Life. While it was a Tree on this plane, when Castiel saw beyond his vessel’s eyesight, he could see the light of grace reaching through all the circles of Heaven, crossing over the overlapping circles for access.</p><p>Castiel wove a piece of his grace into one of the small flowers circling the Tree’s vines and whispered a soft prayer before dropping his offering into the void that was the waterfalls. His heart felt heavy somehow, as he watched his grace fade amongst the stream of light within the tree. </p><p>The apple pie and the vanilla ice cream at Biggerson’s had disturbed him enough that he’d flown towards the gardens. Emotion was a heavy burden to angels, and this particular one was the heaviest one of all. But at least he understood it. Longing was possibly the easiest of all emotions an angel could understand. </p><p>“You know, the Righteous Man isn’t really dead,” Joshua said in companionship. </p><p>Castiel had sensed Joshua’s arrival in the thrum of the Song and the whisper of his wings on the air. The seraph had just thought the Virtue wouldn’t have approached. Not when Castiel was almost lost in the choking sense of despair that the recent encounter had left him. </p><p>“He is the opposite of dead. He’s been reincarnated,” Castiel parroted words that both Gabriel and Raphael have used to lecture him time and time again about the situation. His mind understood it, but somehow, he still felt the sharp sting of suppressed tears, the crushing sense of loss. “But he is lost to us at the moment.”</p><p>“Grief is a strange thing, it feels like you’re falling, always falling. Once you’ve hit rock bottom, you realize the fall was just too overwhelming, too foreign to have known…” The Song was filled with the hymn of David. A dedication to his temple, it was Joshua preaching. But Castiel couldn't be consoled by it. “… you’ve always had the wings to fly.”</p><p>Sometimes, Castiel wished the Song was not so resonant in all of them. There were times when you wished that you would be alone with your pain, and it was very human of him to wish it. “I’m not grieving,” Castiel whispered brokenly, but there was a heaviness in his chest where his vessel’s heart was beating.</p><p>Joshua allowed him the lie, but his eyes bore through his grace. “When you were human and the Righteous Man was dead, you went to my church. You did not mourn because you knew you would find him again. Heaven is a place that you would reach eventually.” Joshua paused, the leaves of the Tree of Life rustling in the soft winds that permeated the Garden. “Now that you are an angel and he is reincarnated, you fear that the next time you meet he will be something else. Changed.”</p><p>“That is selfish.”</p><p>“But it doesn’t make it any less real.” There was a note of comfort in the Song, a strain that depicted warmth. In human vessels, it might have been construed as Joshua laying hand on Castiel’s shoulder.</p><p>“It’s been at least a quarter of a century. There’s been time enough.” Castiel felt his vessel start tearing up and it was frustrating, to be unable to control his vessel this much. In the past, his grace would have protected him from this much emotion. Now he welcomed it. “There was just…”</p><p>“Something reminded you of him,” Joshua finished, standing to walk towards the falls, to allow Castiel some amount of privacy. “The reasons why angels are discouraged from putting their faith in humans is not because they are weaker, or they are less, despite what the other choirs tell you. It is because they burn so transiently that they burn brightly.”</p><p>And the Righteous Man was the brightest soul of them all, blinding, Castiel remembered. Wondering, if he would ever think of the loss and not wish for Dean to return. </p><p>“Our grace fuels us, and it does not ebb, it does not dim unless we are cast off.” Castiel rubbed his chest at Joshua’s words. He remembered the feeling of being cast off, he remembers the feeling of being almost human. “Not until the Fall that strips our wings bare or our last Reaping when our wings are burnt to ash by either the Rit Zien or our enemies. Humans live in the now, they have short lives and try to matter for the moment they are alive. You were not meant to burn brightly for a moment.”</p><p>“But I am meant to care for them,” Castiel countered his voice cracking on the emotion.</p><p>Joshua bowed his head. “The humans are resilient in the ways that we angels aren’t.”</p><p>Castiel remembered Dean facing insurmountable odds numerous times. Coming out better after while remaining whole was the Winchester specialty. “Yes, they are,” Castiel whispered. </p><p>“Ahh, there you are, child.” Joshua touched the Tree then closed his eyes, the rustling stopped, the thrum of grace became brighter. Communing with the Tree always felt like Revelation. “You found your wings after all.”</p><p>Castiel closed his eyes and opened his wings, he lifted them to the heavenly winds and hoped that this prayer that he could not voice would be answered.</p>
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